Ashes, We All Fall Down
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: After Kai's death, Tala and Tyson think about the aftermath.


**I was enlightened recently. **

**In on the scenes cut from G-Revolution, it's heavily implied that Kai died after his match with Brooklyn. It's then assumed Dranzer destroyed itself to revive Kai. After seeing the final two episodes of G-Revolution again, I've concluded that Kai is still alive at the very end, at least in the English version, but there are a couple things that still didn't make sense...**

**Nobody but Tyson, Garland, and Tala appeared to notice Kai during the battle with Brooklyn, even while he was standing in the stadium, with no explanation as to how he got there. And with the amount of damage done to Kai's body, he shouldn't have been able to move if the Kai we saw were anything but a spirit.**

**That's basically the idea behind this plot. **

The phoenix's cycle of life, death, and rebirth had ended that day.

Dranzer was currently cracked in three places; the Beyblade she was mounted on in even worse disrepair. They lay side by side next to Kai, and the Blader who'd appeared in the stadium torn up and exhausted to begin with now slumped against the wall, equally damaged. The dead look in his eyes was unmistakeable.

A bitchip could only sustain so much damage before the beast ins`ide it was destroyed as well, and even Dranzer, the phoenix, had no chance of revival.

The same was true for Kai Hiwatari.

Tyson had been the first to discover the body, only mere minutes ahead of his fellow BBA Revolution teammates. Tala had been the first to cry over him – if he wanted to argue over it, Tala also could have said he was the first to realize Kai was a goner. However, there was nothing worth arguing over a dead boy's body for... and Kai himself had said they would never be frieqnds, giving Tala double the reason to remain quiet.

Somehow, Tala inherently knew that the autopsy report had been wrong. He couldn't explain how, but _exhaustion_ just didn't feel like the proper cause of death for the Kai Hiwatari. It was only part of the problem, but not in the way the autopsy had decided it was.

Kai hadn't been just tired physically; he had been tired of living.

Anything Tala had ever tried to do for him, it just hadn't been good enough.

They'd eventually decided to bury Kai in Japan instead of Russia, especially on the insistence of the team of his home country, the Blitzkrieg Boys. Especially on _Tala's_ insistence. There were too many bad memories for Kai to rest peacefully in Russia, and now Tala had bad memories of his own to run from – memories newly formed, strange to him, that he didn't yet know how to deal with and didn't want to learn how.

The day of Kai's funeral was cold, even by Tala's standards, and the rain came and went. The skies were grey from the instant the sun rose, and stubbornly remained that way until dusk. 'Moody,' Tala thought, with a sense of seething irony over the weather, 'Just like you always were.'

If Kai's death was anyone's fault, it was Kai's own, and he'd probably brought it on himself. Tala knew that better than anyone, and the anger he felt at Kai wasn't justifiable in any sense – he was angry at the things he had seen Kai do and the way Kai had acted, at Kai's refusal to call him a friend or to let anyone help him. Much like the plague of their childhood, Boris, Kai was an extremist in many ways. He would have loathed to hear Tala call him that.

The thought was sharp like the rain, which was currently falling again in quick, thundering droplets. It wouldn't be forgotten by Tala any time soon, because both added to the permanence of a reality he had struggled to face:

Kai was dead, he wasn't coming back. The boy had been through a lot, but some time, a long time ago, Tala had illusioned himself to believe Kai was the toughest of them all.

Instead he had been the first to die, at no older than sixteen years.

Meanwhile, he was stuck here going back and forth between blaiming Kai for his death and blaming himself and feeling terrible and weak in the worst of ways.

Shortly after Tala and the other Abbey bladers received their independence from Boris and Voltaire, they'd been assigned mandatory therapy twice a week – minus Kai, who'd conveniently disappeared to Japan again. Tala had been assured multiple times that fourteen – or sixteen – years old was far too young to have such a bleak outlook on life, to give up on hope and spend all your time fighting with yourself. His therapist had been frank with him, reminding him that it was a difficult thing to do and not all people who struggled managed to get by. He'd never considered himself the one most at need for this talk:

It wasn't Kai himself that Tala was angry with.

000

Tyson had grown up a lot since Kai had first met him.

At the beginning of his Beyblading career, he'd been irrational, hot-headed, and a little on the arrogant side, choosing to act impulsively and do what he thought was right instead of thinking things through. There were still remnants of that personality in Tyson - it was part of who he was, after all, something he couldn't change. However, there was a certain calmness that had settled inside of him too, and it was no doubt thanks to Kai.

That was why he wasn't handling the funeral as badly as most people thought he would, and he could remain dry-eyed while Hilary stood next to him and sobbed as if she'd just lost her childhood friend. There were certain things Tyson had come to understand about this world, and one of them was this: That loss was mandatory, and that he believed in Kai regardless of what had done. And that Kai wouldn't want anyone to be crying over him.

Hilary didn't need to know these things, of course. If Tyson told her that, she'd most likely get mad and hit him, calling him insensitive. But it was true.

The truth of it didn't make the situation any easier to deal with, because another truth was that losing someone hurt, knowing Kai had died and there had been nothing Tyson could to do help him hurt. It was also true that Tyson wasn't the only one hurting, though some people guarded their feelings even better than he did... and that he may not have been the person closest to Kai after all.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing he said to Tala, once they found some free time alone.

Exactly as he'd expected of the Russian blader, Tala was just as dry-eyed as he had been, though Tyson suspected the reasons may have been a little different. Tala had grown up in the same situation as Kai had, they probably understood each other better. It also meant they'd grown up following the same exact beliefs, something Tyson admitted he could never understand, even if he tried his best to respect them.

Today was an exception, but he had no idea if he could have managed, being forced to live in a childhood as cynical and untrusting and power-hungry as theirs had been.

Tala didn't react much at first, but an uncomfortable fidget at the sound of Tyson's voice was still doing much better than the last time they'd spoken with each other - neither was acquainted with the other boy very well, and even now they only knew each other through Kai.

For a moment, Tala looked like he wanted to say something. He opened his mouth, closed it again, then furrowed his eye brows thoughtfully. Tyson waited patiently; the grim atmosphere had made him more patient than he normally would have been, until finally he assumed that Tala had nothing to say after all, and slowly made his way to leave.

That was when the Russian blader stopped him.

"What if it was intentional?" he asked solemnly.

"What if what was intentional?" Tyson asked, purposely playing dumb. He wasn't as simple-minded as he had used to be; he knew exactly what Tala was getting at. There was only one possible thing...

"It's just... never mind."

Tala's shoulders slumped and he suddenly became intently interested in the ground, and it was then that Tyson knew. No matter how the Russian Beybladers behaved, no matter how they acted, they were just as affected by the death of a former teammate as Tyson and his own crew were. Just because it didn't show as much, didn't mean they didn't care. It must have been hard for them, but they really had made a lot of progress since the last World Tournament...

"No, tell me," Tyson insisted. "I'm interested in hearing it. What's your theory?"

Being supportive in a time like this was nearly impossible, even for him, and it took every bit of extra energy he had left to work up a reassuring smile for Tala. He needed to promise the other boy he wouldn't get mad, he didn't believe Tala had anything to say about Kai that he meant to be offensive. Not at this point.

"It's a stupid theory," Tala began, sighing deeply.

Even Tyson could tell he wasn't used to opening up like this, as he noted Tala's teammates in the background. Two of them were watching curiously, but made no move to step forward and stop them. All three of them looked about as down in the dumps as Tala himself. Kai had met something to all of them - the realization hit Tyson suddenly, something he'd never really noticed before.

Several seconds passed as Tala continued to frown, plotting out the best way to phrase what he had to say.

"I don't think it was unintentional," was what he came up with finally. It was as obvious to Tyson as it was to Tala himself that the words were awkward coming out of his mouth. "I'm not sure why, but I've got this feeling... and anyway, a bitbeast doesn't normally die with its master. Wolborg was artificially engineered, but I've seen bitbeasts that have been passed down for generations – they just don't die. Especially not Dranzer. Especially not a bitbeast that should have the ability to resurrect itself."

There was an uncharacteristic strain in Tala's voice, and suddenly the words sounded like they were being choked out of him. As near as Tyson could tell, that was an attempt to refrain from sobbing, but disbelief made it impossible to tell for sure.

Tyson was already shocked into silence as Tala finished, "He... he did this on purpose, didn't he? I don't know how I know, I just..." Tala inhaled deeply, and that seemed to calm down his shaking shoulders a bit. "I just... have this feeling, like... like Dranzer shattered for a purpose, and Kai just chose not to respond."

Tyson contemplated this for a moment. Rationality took over because he didn't want to believe, didn't want to believe that what Tala was saying might have some truth to it.

"Now, calm down for just a minute, Tala! You were in a coma all that-"

"I woke up!" Tala snapped, "I _was_ in a coma, but I could feel what was happening to him, Tyson! I knew when he died!"

The sudden change in personality made Tyson jump, and for a brief instant he was reminded of Tala as the two had fought in the first Beyblade world championship, but... that was ridiculous. The old Tala that Tyson had once known had come and passed; that much was evident just from how they were standing here, talking together right now.

The same could easily be true for Kai, and he just didn't want to admit it. Kai _had_ been doing better before this current tournament had started. Tyson had merely chosen to ignore that fact.

Suddenly, it was all coming back to him. He knew Kai was capable of smiling, but it was something he'd rarely seen in the past year, if it had been there at all.

Stiff silence pass between them once more. It was short-lived, as Tala, focusing intently on the ground, grumbled, "He never really was happy, was he? Nothing was ever good enough for him..."

"He talked about you sometimes," Tyson blurted suddenly.

It was a lie, and the words came so quickly out of Tyson's mouth that he almost suspected Tala knew he was lying – and Kai hadn't talked to anyone on BBA Revolution much since joining. There were several days before he... before he died, that they didn't even know where he was. But suddenly it was obvious what Tala was afraid of, what was _really_ bothering him about Kais' death, and Tyson was willing to tell him what he needed to hear. Even if it meant lying.

And who knew? Maybe the same partial truth that had always been there for BBA Revolution, and for the Blade Breakers before that, existed for Tala and his crew as well.

Tala looked up from the ground and eyed him curiously, waiting for him to continue. Reality hit Tyson hard at that moment, and suddenly the task of speaking became much more difficult, knowing that Tala really was relying on him to say something.

He swallowed dryly and contined, "Kai never had anything bad to say though, so don't think that. He... he didn't hate any of the Russian Bladers, even if it seemed that way. He was like that a lot, you know?"

There should have been more he could add to that. There were examples, times were Tyson knew Kai really cared about his teammates, but suddenly he couldn't think of any of them. Not now, not when it really counted. Not for Tala.

"Kai really did care," he finished lamely, after a long pause to think it over. "He just wasn't good at showing it."

It was difficult to tell whether Tala really believed that or not. Several seconds went by where neither boy said one thing to the other, and anticipation that Tala would call him out for bluffing being to grow in Tyson's stomach like a sickness, a dead weight that makes him feel ill almost literally too. Tyson is just about wondering if he should excuse himself and find a place to throw up before Tala finally speaks again:

"...Thank you, Tyson."

Tala turns, leaving Tyson behind to catch up with his teammates who've waited for him all this time but are starting to look more annoyed than worried by this point, particularly in Bryan's case. The Russian Blader still walks with a limp thanks to his injuries from Garland, and he has a long way to go before he recovers from that.

But at least he's going to.

The sickness in Tyson's stomach is slowly dispersing, filled with something he vaguely recognizes as relief. Hope for Tala. Encouragement. They never knew each other well, but Tyson is surprised by how much he suddenly wants Tala to succeed, because if this is where Kai decided to leave off...

Tyson casts a glance at the gravemarker thoughtfully, and for the briefest instant he sees Kai again, just as he was in the final battle against Brooklyn. Covered in bandages. But he looks like he approves, he's wearing that same, almost imperceptible smile he always did when Tyson's done something that he thinks is right.

Kai vanishes just as quickly as he appeared, before Tyson even has the time to think about calling Tala back to see. He thinks he understands the message though; it's going to take Tala a long time to recover from those injuries, but it's going to take him even longer to recover from Kai's death.

Maybe Tala was right, and maybe Tala was wrong. Maybe Dranzer really did attempt to save Kai. Maybe Kai did die on purpose. Nobody had any way to answer those questions now, because Kai never talked. That's the reason he's dead and as much as Tyson is going to miss him there's nothing he can do about it anymore except hope that Kai has found his peace, finally.

That doesn't mean he wants to let go of Kai.

It just means that there's someone who needs his help more right now, that he has something to do on Kai's behalf.

That's why Tyson feels compelled to take the first step forward and follow after Tala.

**The "Tala" and "Tyson" portions of this story were intended to be the same length, but _look at how well that turned out_. **

**Anything that doesn't make sense, sounds OoC... I rewatch certain parts of Beyblade at least once a year, but it's been a while since I've written anything for the series. The best thing you can do is leave a critic so I know what to work on in the future.**

**P.S. I really like the idea of Tala and Tyson becoming bros. Is that weird?**


End file.
